Page 74 - 1619 Project Curriculum

T he 1619 Project

⬤ 1932: The United States Public Health Service begins the Tuskegee Study of
with 600 subjects, approximately two-thirds

Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,

of whom have syphilis. The subjects are told only that they are being treated

for ‘‘bad blood.’’ Approximately 100 die from the disease. It is later revealed that for

research purposes, the men were denied drugs that could have saved them.

Upon closer inspection, the leaf her 2-year-old was attempting to put men who were enrolled in the Tuskegee Study were told they’d get free

in his mouth in the middle of the playground on that lovely fall day was in medical care. Instead, from 1932 to 1972, researchers watched as the men

their

fact a used tampon. She snatched it from him and Purelled both of developed lesions on their mouths and genitals. Watched as their lymph

hands before rushing them back to their apartment on Dean. She put him nodes swelled, as their hair fell out. Watched as the disease moved into

in the bath and scrubbed, and by the time her husband found them, they its final stage, leaving the men blind and demented, leaving them to die.

were both crying. All this when they knew a simple penicillin shot would cure them. All

‘‘We have to leave New York,’’ she said after he put the baby to bed. this because they wanted to see what would happen. For years afterward,

‘‘Let’s move back home.’’ her grandmother refused to go to the hospital. Even at 89, perpetually

‘‘There are tampons in Alabama,’’ he said, and then, ‘‘What’s the worst hunched over in the throes of an endless cough, she’d repeat, ‘‘Anything

that could happen?’’ but the doctor.’’ Bad blood begets bad blood.

It was the question they’d played out since graduate school, when her She’s more trusting than her grandmother, but she still has her mo-

hypochondria had been all-consuming. Back then, leaning into her fears, ments. Like many women, she was nervous about giving birth. All the

describing them, had given her some comfort, but then they had Booker more so because she was doing it in New York City, where black wom-

and suddenly the worst looked so much worse. en are 12 times as likely to die in childbirth as white women. And in that

Tuskegee. The lingering, nig-

‘‘He could get an S.T.D., and then we’d be the black parents at the hos- very statistic, the indelible impression of

pital with a baby with an S.T.D., and the pediatrician would call social ser- gling feeling that she is never fully safe in a country where doctors and via Wellcome Collection

vices, and they would take him away, and we’d end up in jail.’’ researchers had no qualms about watching dozens of black men die —

‘‘O.K.,’’ he said slowly. ‘‘That would be bad, but it’s statistically very, very slowly, brutally — simply because they could. When she held Booker in

unlikely. Would it make you feel better if we called the doctor?’’ her arms for the first time and saw her grandmother’s nose on his perfect

She shook her head. Her husband only used the word ‘‘statistically’’ face, love and fear rose up in her. ‘‘What’s the worst that could happen?’’

when he wanted to avoid using the words ‘‘you’re crazy.’’ She knew that her husband asks, and she can’t speak it — the worst. Instead, she tries

the doctor would just tell her to trust him, but she also knew that when the to turn off the little voice in her head, the one that wants to know: How

worst happens in this country, it often happens to them. exactly do you cure bad blood? Syringe: Science Museum, London,

She comes by her hypochondria and iatrophobia honestly. When she

was growing up in
Alabama, people still talked about their grandfathers,

fathers and brothers who had died of bad blood. That was the catchall

term for syphilis, anemia and just about anything that ailed you. The 600 By Yaa Gyasi

68 Photo illustration by Jon Key